I used to lie. When I was a kid, I lied all the time. Now I don’t even know why. Maybe it was because reality was too harsh for a kid like me. So, I lied.

When I read A Tree Grown in Brooklyn, there was a part where Francie lied and her teacher recommended her to write stories instead of lying. This was a big realization for me. I was about twelve and I was lying a lot and the exact thing was happening to a girl in a novel that I had been reading. After that my habit of lying slowly diminished. I was telling a white lie sometimes, but mostly I preferred telling the truth.

Now, nearly 20 years later, I’m a terrible liar but excellent lie detector. Because I was once a liar, I don’t know how I got bad at lying. Once I stopped, I didn’t want to go back there again. And after years and years of not lying, I forgot how to.

I think, when we are growing up, we learn how to lie. But, for me, since I was a liar in the beginning, I needed to learn how to tell the truth.